likely to go to prison, 50% less likely to vote, more likely to need social welfare assistance, not eligible for 90% of jobs, are being paid 40 cents to the dollar of earned by a college graduate, and continuing the cycle of poverty.”   HOWARD GARDNER: FIVE MINDS FOR THE FUTURE Sociologist Howard Gardner, one of our all-time favorite nonfiction authors, is best-known as the father of the theory of multiple intelligences — a radical rethinking of human intellectual and creative ability, arguing that traditional psychometrics like IQ tests or the SAT fail to measure the full scope and diversity of intelligence. In Five Minds for the Future, Gardner’s highly ant... posted on Jul 6 2011 (40,746 reads)

engage in creative thinking every day, whether they realize it or not. Ekaterina Chizhevskaya/iStock via Getty Images Lily Zhu, Washington State University Do you think that creativity is an innate gift? Think again. Many people believe that creative thinking is difficult – that the ability to come up with ideas in novel and interesting ways graces only some talented individuals and not most others. The media often portrays creatives as those with quirky personalities and unique talent. Researchers have also identified numerous personality traits that are associated with creativity, such as openness to new experiences, ideas and perspectives. Together, they ... posted on Feb 7 2023 (3,207 reads)

Oliver on Time, Concentration, the Artist’s Task, and the Central Commitment of the Creative Life. “The most regretful people on earth are those who felt the call to creative work, who felt their own creative power restive and uprising, and gave to it neither power nor time.” “In the wholeheartedness of concentration,” the poet Jane Hirshfield wrote in her beautiful inquiry into the effortless effort of creativity, “world and self begin to cohere. With that state comes an enlarging: of what may be known, what may be felt, what may be done.” But concentration is indeed a difficult art, art’s art, and its difficulty... posted on Apr 23 2018 (13,808 reads)

is the author of the national bestselling book The Artist's Way. With Sounds True, Julia has released Reflections on the Artist's Way, a teaching program on many of the key themes introduced in The Artist's Way, and also, along with writer Natalie Goldberg, a program called The Writing Life, filled with ideas and inspiration for anyone who wants to write. In this episode of Insights at the Edge, Julia and I spoke about how to break through creative blocks, the Censor, and how her relationship with her own Censor has changed throughout the course of her life. We also talked about why creativity requires that we take risks, and some big, ... posted on May 7 2013 (26,364 reads)

is for amateurs — the rest of us just show up and get to work,” Chuck Close scoffed. “A self-respecting artist must not fold his hands on the pretext that he is not in the mood,” Tchaikovsky admonished.“Show up, show up, show up, and after a while the muse shows up, too,” Isabel Allende urged. But true as this general sentiment may be, it isn’t always an easy or a livable truth — most creative people do get stuck every once in a while, or at the very least hit the OK plateau. What then? Not too long ago, Alex Cornell rallied some of our time’s most celebrated artists, writers, and designers, and asked them to share t... posted on Apr 22 2014 (26,216 reads)

what you want, but it’s even worse to have an idea of what it is you want and find out at the end of the journey that it isn’t, in fact, what you wanted all along.” HUGH MACLEOD ON SETTING BOUNDARIES Cartoonist Hugh MacLeod is as well-known for his irreverent doodles as he is for his opinionated musings on creativity, culture, and the meaning of life. In Ignore Everybody: and 39 Other Keys to Creativity, he gathers his most astute advice on the creative life. Particularly resonant with my own beliefs about the importance of choices is this insight about setting boundaries: 16. The most important thing a creative per­son can learn... posted on Apr 22 2012 (55,715 reads)

you earlier because there was a time when Eat, Pray, Love was everywhere. And what I've been so interested in is watching this evolution and development of you, into, through, and beyond that. And so watching how you're processing that, and how you're articulating what you're learning about life, and kind of inhabiting this role you have in people's lives — whether you ask for it or not. And so much of that coalesces around this idea of what it means to be creative and, I think, kind of demystifying that. And then — so, on the one hand, demystifying creativity — what did you say? What's your definition? Creative living... MS. GILBERT:... posted on Sep 5 2016 (16,708 reads)

With that state comes an enlarging: of what may be known, what may be felt, what may be done.” But concentration is indeed a difficult art, art’s art, and its difficulty lies in the constant conciliation of the dissonance between self and world — a difficulty hardly singular to the particular conditions of our time. Two hundred years before social media, the great French artist Eugène Delacroix lamented the necessary torment of avoiding social distractions in creative work; a century and a half later, Agnes Martin admonished aspiring artists to exercise discernment in the interruptions they allow, or else corrupt the mental, emotional, and spiritual p... posted on Oct 23 2016 (18,867 reads)

values: Starting in the 1980s, cultivating creativity didn’t seem like the path to a stable job, and schools shifted to focus on improving standardized test scores in order to get funding, Kim writes. The Creativity Challenge addresses how to combat this disheartening trend. Her book is a challenge for all of us—particularly those in leadership positions—to create environments that encourage creativity and all of the benefits it brings. 
 Eight signs of a creative person One way to foster creativity is for managers, educators, and parents to understand the kinds of behaviors and attitudes creative people exhibit, and to recognize and support them. I... posted on Feb 21 2017 (13,585 reads)

Ronald Reagan has to do with gorilla costumes, Shakespeare and fake pennies.   The intricate mechanisms of the human mind are endlessly fascinating. We’ve previously explored various facets of how the mind works — from how we decide towhat makes us happy to why music affects us so deeply — and today we’re turning to when it doesn’t: Here are five fantastic reads on why we err, what it means to be wrong, and how to make cognitive lemonade out of wrongness’s lemons. BEING WRONG The pleasure of being right is one of the most universal human addictions and most of us spend an extraordinary amount of effort on avoidi... posted on Nov 11 2011 (9,104 reads)

is one of the most mysterious human qualities. Seemingly effortless for a rare few, it can be elusive for the majority. While the most extensive training in the world can’t turn an average Joe into Paul McCartney, these simple techniques can help edge the creative muse closer. 1. Limit your options.Studies show that restricting one’s choices can more effectively trigger creative thought. That’s because leaving every door open makes it difficult to focus on which way to go, while having a more specific target helps you channel your thought process. And the target doesn’t even have to be logical. Recently I was having trouble finishing a chapter of a novel... posted on Mar 23 2015 (61,929 reads)

Oscar Wilde has to do with Hippocrates and the neurochemistry of romance. It’s often said that every song, every poem, every novel, every painting ever created is in some way “about” love. What this really means is that love is a central theme, an underlying preoccupation, in humanity’s greatest works. But what exactly is love? How does its mechanism spur such poeticism, and how does it lodge itself in our minds, hearts and souls so completely, so stubbornly, as to permeate every aspect of the human imagination? Today, we turn to 5 essential books that are “about” love in a different way — they turn an inquisitive lens towards this grand ... posted on Jan 24 2012 (14,487 reads)

creative activities like knitting and cooking can boost your levels of serotonin and decrease anxiety. Photo by Asife/ Shutterstock. Do you consider yourself creative? If the answer is "no," you are not alone. We have been working as creativity facilitators for close to two decades, and whenever we ask people this question, shockingly few hands go up. It turns out that you don't have to be a great artist to be creative. Creativity is simply our ability to dream things up and make them happen. Cooking breakfast, planting a garden, even developing a business plan are all creative acts. But here is where the arts do come in. Participating in the ar... posted on Jun 5 2014 (1,808 reads)

get a little shaky, your stomach flips. I know in my own life that it tends to be [that] fear is a sort of propellant. So is excitement. [I think] the difference is that fear tends to make me want to run in the opposite direction, and excitement makes me want to run toward the thing. [Laughs.] So, I think it’s more of a navigational question. Do you want to get away from this, or are you trying to get closer to it? That’s probably the way that I distinguish it. I think—creatively speaking—I’ve learned to make friends with fear over the years in ways that I haven’t quite yet been able to in other emotional realms in my life. But I’ve been able... posted on Sep 16 2014 (23,745 reads)

the more manageable part of our experience of nature. We experience the logos of the world as a form of logic and reason, but we can also experience the logos as discourse or speech. As a communication, it inherently places us into relationship. This is a more intimate experience of nature, and it is less manageable because it connects us to things more closely without our fully understanding or being in control. We experience a living logos,  a creative, living language that embodies our fundamental connection to nature. This “language of life,” the conscious and unconscious experience of the world as imbued with life-giving lang... posted on Oct 26 2020 (5,888 reads)

psychology of spaghetti sauce and why too many jams make you lose your appetite. Why are you reading this? How did you decide to click the link, load the page and stay? How do we decide to do anything at all and, out of the myriad choices we face each day, what makes one option more preferable over another? This is one of the most fundamental questions of the social sciences, from consumer psychology to economic theory to behavioral science. Today, at the risk of meta-irony, we look at not one but five fantastic books and talks that explore the subject. Take your pick(s) — if you can, that is.   JONAH LEHRER HOW WE DECIDE Among other things, Jonah Lehrer writes the excell... posted on Oct 10 2011 (36,004 reads)

creative activities like knitting and cooking can boost your levels of serotonin and decrease anxiety. Photo by Asife/ Shutterstock. Do you consider yourself creative? If the answer is "no," you are not alone. We have been working as creativity facilitators for close to two decades, and whenever we ask people this question, shockingly few hands go up. It turns out that you don't have to be a great artist to be creative. Creativity is simply our ability to dream things up and make them happen. Cooking breakfast, planting a garden, even developing a business plan are all creative acts. But here is where the arts do come in. Partici... posted on Jun 5 2014 (37,433 reads)

naturally love to play and explore and use their imaginations -- but as adults, we often get so sucked into work and the demands of daily life that hobbies and creative outlets completely fall by the wayside. When you ask the average working adult what their hobbies are, there's a good chance they'll say "none." But in forgoing hobbies and personal creative projects, we may be doing ourselves a major disservice. "Finding time for ourselves is key to our own sanity," Joyce E. A. Russell writes in a "Career Coach" article in the Washington Post. "It can actually improve all the other aspects of our lives. Having a hobby may be even m... posted on Aug 19 2014 (27,651 reads)

more than a hundred literary journals worldwide. He's the author of the books Beamish Boy: A Memoir, Letters to Early Street, and Walking Tooth and Cloud. With Sounds True, Albert Flynn DeSilver has written a new book called Writing as a Path to Awakening: A Year to Becoming an Excellent Writer and Living an Awakened Life, where he invites the reader on a year-long journey of growth and discovery to enhance writing through the practice of meditation while using the creative process to accelerate spiritual evolution. In this episode of Insights at the Edge, Albert and I spoke about the difference between the creative pursuit of writing and writing as a pa... posted on Sep 20 2018 (10,347 reads)

secret of success is concentrating interest in life… interest in the small things of nature… In other words to be fully awake to everything.” With Father’s Day around the corner, let’s take a moment to pay heed to some of the wisest, most heart-warming advice from history’s famous dads. Gathered here are five timeless favorites, further perpetuating my well-documented love of the art of letter-writing. F. SCOTT FITZGERALD In a 1933 letter to his 11-year-old daughter Scottie, F. Scott Fitzgeraldproduced this poignant and wise list of things to worry, not worry, and think about, found in the altogether excellent F. ... posted on Jun 17 2012 (19,865 reads)